The ALMA Operations Support Facility

A view of the ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) Operations Support Facility (OSF) in Chile. ALMA is the largest ground-based astronomy project in existence, comprising a giant array of 12-metre submillimetre antennas, with maximum separations up to 16 kilometres. An additional, a compact array of 7-metre and 12-metre antennas complements the main array. Construction of ALMA started in 2003 and the array was inaugurated in 2013. The ALMA project is an international collaboration between Europe, East Asia and North America in cooperation with the Republic of Chile.